Exodus 16:2-15 "Whiners and Provider"

 You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly! 

         And the tale of Moses continues to continue – for the fifth week now – each Bible story taking us further into Moses’ life and delving more deeply into his character and psyche, but even more so giving us opportunities to explore the covenant, or relationship, that God/Yahweh/The Great I Am had with the Hebrew people and that they, in turn, had with the Holy One. Let’s look back and see how far we have come.

         Week #1:  a wailing three month old Moses is set afloat in a basket on the mighty Nile River, only to be found by an Egyptian princess who was delighted to have a son to raise even knowing that, by her father the Pharaoh’s command, the infant should have been a doomed Hebrew child.  “Every boy that is born, drown him in the Nile.”

         Week #2:  Moses, well past the age to claim his social security, follows an errant lamb to the heights of Mt. Sinai and there finds himself conversing with the voice of God that seemed to be emanating from a burning bush.  “I am Yahweh, Moses.  I am the Great I Am.  Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.”

         Week #3:  Moses, with his knees knocking, is standing before the Pharaoh pleading his case to the stubborn ruler, trying to negotiate a deal for freedom as disaster after disaster rains down on the Egyptian people.  “Let me people go.”

         Week #4:  Moses, the reluctant leader of the Israelites, is journeying with the freed slaves not overland but toward the sea until the waters that seemed to go on forever lap about his ankles, and he has no choice but to raise his hand and his staff as God had instructed him to do – “Split the sea, Moses, split the sea” – and, on a wing and a prayer, he walks before the Israelites into the brine, ever deeper into the waters of faith.

       And now they are on the other side of the sea, and the Egyptian army that had relentlessly pursued them is crushed.  The Hebrew women have sung and danced on the beach in celebration: 

Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;

horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

         However, the Israelites are not yet in this so-called Promised Land.  Though they had a bit of a respite at an oasis that seemed to them to be close to paradise, an oasis called Elim where God had provided cool, clear, and much needed water to drink, there is still no fertile land in sight to call their own.  They have walked for two months now, and the scenery is not at what they had expected.  It is not one bit like the travel brochures. It is not Club Med.

         The weather is hot, the sun shines unmercifully during the day, and the land is arid.  Drinkable water is scarce, and they are faced here in the wilderness with ongoing food insecurity.  It will be 40 years before they reach the land that God/Yahweh/The Great I Am has set aside for them, but they do not know that fact, which is probably a good thing.

         All they are concerned about is the present, today, and today they are hungry.  And so they are doing what they seem to do best.  They are whining (or murmuring as one translation calls it).  They are grumbling, complaining. 

         "Why us?" "Life isn’t fair." "Where is this Great I Am when you need such a Holy One?”  “If only we had…”  “If only, if only, if only….”

       As Lutheran pastor Vern Christopherson imagines, “They march up to Moses and say: ‘Why didn’t we die in the land of Egypt? At least there we had bread and meat to our hearts’ content. As it is now, you’ve brought us into the wilderness to starve us to death.’

         The facts, of course, don’t quite bear this out. The people have conveniently forgotten that they complained in Egypt too. They complained about Pharaoh’s harsh taskmasters. They complained about having to make bricks without straw. They complained about not being free.

         But now that they are free—sad to say—the complaining continues.”  The Israelites are emphatic that this – all this wilderness business, all this walking, all this not having enough food to eat and water to drink – all this is NOT what they had signed up for!

         Complain, complain, complain!  One might have thought that God/Yahweh/The Great I Am would be pretty frustrated with the Israelites right about now.  First, there was all that grumbling about having to get their feet wet in the Red Sea.  Then there was the issue with the potable water that forced a detour to the Elim oasis. Now they were complaining about not enough food – their bread was gone, and their mouths watered for meat – not that they had seen much of either while enslaved in Egypt.  However, it seems they had conveniently forgotten that fact now too. 

         If I had been God/Yahweh/The Great I Am, I might have been tempted to throw in the sponge and send a few well-placed lightening bolts to finish off this experiment in freedom – or at least initiate a much-needed attitude adjustment.  However, the Holy One did not respond out of anger and frustration. 

         Instead, God did something to help the Israelites remember the most important facts they would ever be called to remember:  Who brought you out of Egypt? Who set Pharaoh back a notch or two? Who controlled the Red Sea when you walked across it? Who found you clear, cool water to drink?  Who loves you?

         And so, as one blogger wrote, “God’s deal is this; the Israelites have quail at night and in the morning the ground is covered with a white flaky substance ‘as fine as frost’ that could be baked or boiled. But it’s only there for a short time after the dew has evaporated and before the heat of the midday sun melts it. The Israelites called it manna, man hu literally translated as ‘what is it?’ or ‘what do you call it?’”

         The quail and manna are not given, however, free and clear, with no strings attached.  You see, God/Yahweh/The Great I Am instructed the Israelites to only take what is needed for their family for that one day.  They are not to store up treasures of manna and quail.  They are not to horde.  (Of course, some of them tried anyway but discovered the following day that the leftover manna only filled their backpacks with worms and emitted a terrible rotten stench.) 

         And on the sixth day, they are to take enough of the dewy gooey substance to last for two days – and a quail or two extra as well.  After all, the seventh day is the Sabbath, a day of rest. 

         It is a nice story, don’t you think?  However, like all Biblical narratives, it is not time bound, but so has something to say to us here today as well.

         So - let’s pick the passage apart for a moment or two – and see what relevance this tale might have for you and me.  After all, it is an ancient story filled with a couple of those old-time religion type miracles that are hard to make sense of:  manna from heaven, quail from the skies, a daily all-you-can-eat buffet.  But might we look beyond our penchant for literalism?  Might there be a truth – a deeper truth – that lies at the heart of this tale that has nothing to do with whether or not the details are literally true?

         I think there is such a truth, but we need to begin with the assumption that this story is not about miracles – though manna from heaven is a wonderful image of a God who always provides.  This story is about the relationship – or the covenant – that existed between God/Yahweh/The Great I Am and the Hebrew people – a covenant that still exists today between God and we as Christians who claim to be sons and daughters of the Almighty through Jesus. Covenant is not just a Jewish thing; we too are covenant people. 

       So let’s talk a bit about this relationship.  Relationships or covenants involve two entities.  So, in this case, on the one hand, we have the Israelites who are always complaining.  On the other hand, we have God/Yahweh/The Great I Am who is providing for their needs. 

       It is pretty simple at first glance – and, OK, pretty easy to have a “holier than thou” attitude, point fingers, and diss the Israelites and their bad attitude.  However, let’s not be so hard on them as complaining seems to be part and parcel of simply being human. 

       I mean, take the true story of a 27-year- old woman who walked into a McDonald's restaurant and ordered a 10-piece McNuggets meal.  The employee behind the counter took the order and received payment, only to discover that the restaurant was out of McNuggets.

       The employee told the customer that she would have to get something else from the menu, which prompted the customer to ask for her money back. The employee told her that all sales are final, but that she could have anything - even have a larger priced item - from the menu.

       The customer got angry. She wanted McNuggets—not a Big Mac, not a Quarter Pounder. For her, this situation was clearly an emergency, and she knew what to do in an emergency.  She called 911 to complain. Actually, she called three times.  She never got her McNuggets that night, but she did later get a ticket from the police for misusing 911.

       Face it.  At some point or another, we are all whiners.  If we are not complaining about the McNuggets, we are grumbling about the weather – or the news or that the sermon was too long or that church is not what it used to be.  Responding as the Israelites responded to their less-than-ideal circumstances is not a characteristic unique to them.  So that is one half of the covenant relationship – the whiners (that would be us).

       And then there is the God part.  God is the provider, but God demands something in return.  God demands trust.  God demands faith in Yahweh, faith in the Great I Am. 

       For the Israelites, that meant trusting enough not to take more manna and quail than they needed for a single day.  It meant trusting that God would provide not only today but also tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come.  It meant affirming in their actions that God would not abandon them, that God would not give up on them.

         As United Church of Christ pastor Jennifer Whipple writes, “God was not going to just give them their provisions. God is a God of relationship, of covenant, and he had called these folks…to be faithful, to take their relationship with God seriously – to be willing to follow what God called them to do….We don’t just get to sit idly by and wait for God’s provision to land in our laps. We are in this together with God, and merely grumbling and complaining does not get us anywhere near as far as actual steps toward bettering our relationship with God and others.”

         Whiners and Provider:  that is the essence of the covenant, and what cements the relationship is the demand for trust and faith, on the one hand, and the affirmation that, because this is a covenant, a relationship, we are in this with God together.  It played out that way for the Israelites, and it plays out that way for us too.

         Take a look at the modern church as an example.  Like the Israelites, we do our share of grumbling and complaining – mainly reminiscing about the days of yore.

          Remember, we murmur, when all the pews were filled on Sunday morning, and every church had a capital campaign to construct a new educational wing?  Remember, we grumble, when every child was in Sunday School, and no one would think of scheduling a voice lesson or Little League game on a Sunday morning?  Remember, we opine, when there were blue laws and stores were closed on Sunday? Remember, we complain, when the organ reigned supreme and every baby boomer wore those perfect attendance pins dangling from his or her Sunday best?  Remember when church was really church?

         Complain, complain, complain.  We are so good at our part of the covenant.  However, when it comes to something as important as the survival of our church, perhaps we need to remember the other entity of the covenant – the Provider.  Maybe we need to not ally ourselves only with the Whiners, but look to the Provider with the trust, and in the faith, that the Provider demands.

         Maybe, we need to remember, as Methodist pastor, Geoff McElroy wrote, “The God of Israel is not a God of the past.  This God is a God of the present and future, one who calls us to new places and new ways of being in relationship with God and with each other.”  

         Maybe we need to trust the Provider when it comes to the modern church, to our church.  And maybe that needs to begin by trusting what God has provided already in this small gathering.  Maybe we need to stop longing for the times when unemployed volunteer Moms ran our fairs and countless potluck suppers and when families were all intact.  Maybe we need to quit whining about the lack of resources and volunteers we think we face. 

         Maybe we need to be thankful for the men and women among us who are willing to risk exploring what the church might be, who are willing to risk their time and energy and financial resources to create a vision for this church.  Maybe each one of us needs to risk a bit more of our time and energy and financial resources to activate that vision.

         Some people believe that the church will be only a memory 30, 40, 50 years from now.  I am not one of those people. I do not believe that the church will ever be irrelevant. 

         However, I do believe that who we will be as the church – what our faith community will look like – will most likely not end up being something we would recognize today.  The church will look and be and behave differently, and it is up to us to usher in that transformation. 

         Young families - and especially children - are not the future of the church, as we so cavalierly like to say.  We are the future of the church. And I believe that, in whatever form we end up, God still has work for the church to do.  God still has work for this church to do. 

         It is an awesome responsibility that God has given us, and so, going forward, we need to trust that God has already provided us with the people (that would be us – no exceptions!) and the resources (for surely we are generous people when it comes to the church we say we love) that are necessary for us to change and grow – and God will continue to provide those people and resources.  But, in the end, it is up to us.  And so we need to listen for the Spirit and be willing to follow where it leads us, be willing to walk ever deeper into the waters of faith.  If we do that, then we will be living – and this church will be living – truly in covenant with the Holy One.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church (U.C.C.)